234 
Pitoi'oiirioxs ov sr.WE popi'l.vtios. 
Ifin non contains 455,000 free men and 
160,000 slaves : and tliero, by prudent and humane mea- 
sures the gradual abolition of slavery might be brouo-lit 
about Let us not orget, that since SanDomingo has become 
tree; there are in the ivliole archipelago of the West Indies, 
more free negroes and mulattos than slaves. Tlie Avhites, 
nclrs^ nt mf numerical 
1890 ■^!'f. ®l«'e\^ould have diminished, since 
1820, ^ith great rapidi y, but for tlic fraudident contiu- 
iKjion ol the slave-trade. If, by the progress of human 
civilization and the iirm resolution of the new states of free 
America, this infamous traffic should cease altogether, the 
diminution of the slave population would become more con- 
siderable for sonic time, on account of the disproportion 
existing between the two sexes, and the continuance of 
emancipation. It would cease only when tlie relation be- 
tween the deaths and births of slaves sliould be sucJi that 
eventhe efieets of entranchisoment would be counterbalanced. 
I lie whites and free men now form two-thirds of the whole 
population of the island, and tliis increase marks in some 
degree the diminution of the slaves. Among the latter the 
women are to the men (exclusive of the mulatto slaves), 
scarcely in the proportion of 1:4, in the sugar-cane plan- 
tations; in the whole island, as 1:1’7; and in the towns 
and tarms where the negro slaves serve as domestics, or 
work by the aay on their own account as well as that of 
their masters, the proportion is as 1:1-4; even (for instance 
at the H^nah),* as 1:1-2. The developments that 
lollow will show that these proportions are founded on nume- 
rical statements, which may be regarded as the limit-numbers 
ot the maximum. 
The prognostics which are hazarded respecting the dimi- 
nution of the total population of the island, at the period 
• It appears probable that at the end of 182.y of the total population 
nriririeo ooo i'n'tl"’"! f /■'“‘‘S. b'ee and slaves), there were 
nea.ly 160,000 m the towns, and 230,000 in the fields. In 1811. the 
Coasa/arfo ,n a s atenient presented to the Cortes of Spain, computed at 
fieJds ■■ ■“ 1«5,000 in tiie 
of mnla t^rf r Tl.is great accumulation 
fa tlm “sin / f c ® ‘=>^»‘-‘«=‘eristif feature 
